Tuesday, April 21, 2009

It appears that many like myself have fallen for the Scottish woman with the voice of gold. Simon, you have done it again.

Posted By:Cindy Perman

As the world grapples with headlines about troubled loans at Bank of America, looming bankruptcy at General Motors and pirates wreaking havoc on the high seas, a lone dove has emerged to save the global economy.

I am, of course, talking about singing sensation Susan Boyle, who took the world by storm last week with a rendition of “I Dreamed a Dream” from the musical “Les Miserables” on the television show “Britain’s Got Talent” that was so powerful, it made grown men cry.

Not since Ford introduced the Model-T in 1908 has the world been so ... ahem ... moved as it was by Boyle — a dowdy, never-been kissed, unemployed 47-year old who lives alone with her cat Pebbles in a small Scottish town — who proved to Simon Cowell and the world that you don’t have to look like Beyonce to sing like an angel.

Video clips of that audition have been viewed more than 85 million times on YouTube, which is more than the populations of the U.K., Switzerland and Greece combined, and quite a feat for a woman who, before last week, didn’t even know what YouTube was. Now, she’s got a Wikipedia entry, a Facebook page with 1.4 million fans and a Twitter following.

“An inspiration for World Peace!” one poster commented on YouTube.

“It was definitely a moment when the meek inherited the earth,” another posted on her fan site, susan-boyle.com, said, paraphrasing the Bible.

It is almost Biblical, isn’t it? A virgin emerges from a small village to save the economy.

“I’m gonna make that audience rock!” she says in her thick Scottish accent, wearing a tea-stain colored granny dress, with her contestant number plastered awkwardly across her cleavage.

A reason to pick up a copy of a tabloid, to see what the paparazzi rummaging through her trash — sorry, rubbish — have uncovered.

I dreamed that God would be forgiving

A reason to watch the made-for-TV movie about her on Lifetime and expose themselves to millions of dollars in advertising.

As she concluded the song and the crowd jumped to its feet cheering, Susan Boyle blew a kiss. A kiss that, like the butterfly that flapped its wings, set in motion a flutter of dollars, pounds, euros and yen that will get this global economy humming again.